Sammy Davis Jr. was a giant in Hollywood. A member of the infamous rat pack. An award winning singer, dancer and actor. This first major documentary examines Sammy Davis Jr.’s vast talent and his journey for identity through the shifting tides of civil rights and racial progress during 20th-century America. Featuring interviews with such luminaries as George Schlatter, Billy Crystal, Jerry Lewis, Kim Novak and Burt Boyar, with never-before-seen photographs and excerpts from his electric performances, this film explores the life and art of a uniquely gifted entertainer.

THE LAND OF MILK AND FUNNYComedy/Documentary/USA/2017/78 minutes
Directed by Larry HerbstProduced by Danny Gold

This hilarious and uplifting film views Israel through the eyes of society’s funniest observers: comedians. LA-based Jewish stand up, Avi Liberman has been taking fellow American comedians of different backgrounds to Israel to entertain a nation battered by terrorism. As they tour the country, some are deeply affected by the spiritual and historic sites; others are wildly irreverent. Liberman’s tours feature 30 renowned stand ups (i.e., Gary Gulman, Craig Robinson, Wayne Federman). Laughter mixes with deep emotions to create an unforgettable experience for both the comics and the thousands who attend the shows.

Rosalee Glass, a Holocaust survivor taken prisoner to a Russian gulag in Siberia during WW2, shares her story of survival and transforms her destiny by living her life to the fullest. In her 80’s, she started an acting career, in her 90’s, won ‘Miss Congeniality’ in a Senior beauty pageant, was seen by millions in a Super Bowl commercial, wrote a book sharing her secrets to a long life, and dares to ride Alaskan Sled Dogs at 100.

Q&A with Rosalee & Lillian Glass!

Sponsored by Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills

In partnership with Hadassah and Chai Village

Thursday, April 26, 7:30 pm

Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills

Celebrating the life of Jewish Emigre, the Austrian Director Max Reinhardtwith a special presentation of his film,

Academy Award for Best Film Editing, Academy Award for Best Cinematography

A tribute to Jewish émigré Max Reinhardt

On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of Max Reinhardts death, LAJFF will, in cooperation with the Austrian Consulate General – feature this masterpiece.

One of the most important and innovative directors of the first half of the 20th Century, Max Reinhardt (born Goldmann) had a decisive impact in theatre and film reaching from Europe to America. In Salzburg in 1920, he launched the Salzburg Festival, today one of the worlds most famous and influential festivals. Reinhardt was celebrated in Europe as a genius. In 1938, after fleeing certain death under the Nazis regime, he continued his visionary work as an émigré in Los Angeles, where he founded the California Film Festival at the Hollywood Bowl. There he directed his only film in America, A Midsummer Nights Dream. The film was nominated for four Oscars. All the while, the film was banned in Germany and became a symbol of resistance against Fascism.

At 88, Abraham Bursztein is seeing his place in the world rapidly disappear. His kids have sold his Buenos Aires residence, set him up to move to a retirement home, and disagree on how to handle his fading health. But Abraham survived the Holocaust, made a successful life in a foreign land, and isn’t about to quietly fade away. Instead, he plots a secret one-way trip to Poland, where he plans to find the Christian friend who saved him from certain death at the end of World War II, and to keep his promise to return one day. Comedic and poignant in equal measure, from Argentina to Europe on the journey of a lifetime, Abraham is accompanied by extraordinary characters he meets along the way, who both help him and need his help. A standout among these is the iconic Spanish actress Angela Molina, as the proprietor of the Madrid hotel.

With its klezmer-driven score, evocative cinematography and fleet pacing, THE LAST SUIT approaches its weighty themes with a light touch that illuminates a serious story. And in its mix of Spanish, Yiddish, German and Polish, it is a globe-trotting surprise, a late-in-life road movie with planes, trains and heart.

Eli (Ryan Ochoa), a teenager gets to know his grandfather Samuel (Hal Linden) for the first time when he makes him the subject of a senior year animated art project. With dreams of becoming a professional artist, Eli discovers that his grandpa was heroically saved from Nazi capture in Germany by a young woman when he was a boy. After hesitating, Samuel agrees to tell the story he hasn’t told in over 75 years. To his dismay, Eli is assigned to complete his project with an eccentric classmate Kasim, an electric guitar wielding school misfit.

The dramatic escape of thousands of European Jews to Shanghai, who found safe harbor from the Nazi menace, is revealed in the affecting ABOVE THE DROWNING SEA. As Hitler advanced, Jewish families sought refuge in any country that would accept them. With every door closed, Ho Feng-Shan, the Chinese Consul in Vienna, courageously defied his own government and the Gestapo by issuing visas to the refugees. Arriving on China’s eastern coast, the exiles faced new trials in a remote, unfamiliar land, caught up in its own civil war and chaos from foreign invasion. This remarkable story of heroism and humanity comes to life through the voices of actors Julianna Margulies, Tony Goldwyn and Nick Mancuso, as well as accounts by the refugees and their Chinese neighbors who recall their harrowing experiences and the remarkable friendships forged across cultures.

Won the Golden Dragon Award for Best Documentary at the Ferrara FilmFestival, Nominated for the Knight Award for Documentary Achievement at the Miami Film Festival

Introduction by Natan Pakman | Associate Regional Director of the ADL

Sponsored by Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center

Community Partner: Anti-Defamation League Asian Jewish Initiative

Sunday, April 29, 11:00 am

Laemmle’s Playhouse, Pasadena

HEAVEN IS A TRAFFIC JAM ON THE 405 Documentary/USA/2017/40 minutes Directed by Frank Stiefel

2018 Academy Award Winner for Best Documentary Short!

An extraordinary documentary portrait of LA artist Mindy Alper, whose astonishing body of work reveals a lifetime of struggle with debilitating mental illness and family dysfunction. Her only consistent means of communicating has been to channel her self-awareness into remarkable drawings and sculpture. Through an examination of her work, interviews, and the building of an eight foot papier-mache bust we learn how she has emerged from a life of darkness to a life that includes love, trust and laughter. From director Frank Stiefel (Ingelore, 2008).

Q&A with the director Frank Stiefel & Mindy Alper.

Frank Stiefel director, producer and writer,came to filmmaking late in life, spending most of his career in the commercial production. In 2009, Stiefel made his first documentary, “Ingelore”, about his mother, a deaf Holocaust survivor, which premiered at LAJFF and aired on HBO.

Mindy Alper is a Los Angeles based artist whose work is represented by the Rosamund Belsen Gallery, one of the most prestigious galleries in Los Angeles.

Community Partners: International Documentary Association
and MorningStar Commission

One woman’s ambitious project to create the entire Torah, in needlepoint. Over 1,000 stitchers in almost 20 countries, are each stitching a portion, in the hope that the final work will become a inspiring traveling museum exhibit.

Student filmmakers make you think. These are the inspiring stories told through the lens of a new generation. A mix of vibrant storytelling, this exceptional collection highlights very Jewish and personal stories of local Holocaust survivors and those fighting to prevent future genocides told through the eyes of students. Join us as we celebrate young filmmakers at Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust for the Voices of Hope: Student Film Showcase.Sponsored by Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust.

A stirring story of sports, patriotism and personal growth, HEADING HOME charts the underdog journey of Israel’s national baseball team competing for the first time in the World Baseball Classic. After years of defeat, Team Israel finally ranks among the world’s best in 2017, eligible to play in the prestigious international tournament. Their line-up included several Jewish American Major League players—Ike Davis, Josh Zeid and ex-Braves catcher Ryan Lavarnway—most with a tenuous relationship to Judaism, and never having set foot in Israel. Their odyssey takes them from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem where they are greeted as heroes, to Seoul where they must debunk their has-been, wannabe reputations. As their “Mensch on a Bench” mascot tags along, the team does much soul-searching, discovering the pride of representing Israel on the world stage.

Q&A with Jenn Decker, wife of Cody Decker and former journalist for Sports Illustrated & Josh Rawitch, Vice President, Communications of the Arizona Diamondbacks, formerly of the Los Angeles Dodgers

Sponsored by Shirley and Phil Sniderman, Susan and Mike Vizvary, and Brad and Andrea Sniderman

This uplifting film is about a group of Jewish senior citizens who celebrate the weekly Sabbath at the local Wendy’s fast food restaurant in Palm Desert. It is a story of rediscovering the joys of friendship and community again in older age, and in the longing for ritual, however unorthodox it may appear.

Honoring David Suissa, Publisher & Editor-in-Chief of Jewish Journal with the Visionary Award

A group of angry ultra-Orthodox Jews surrounds a bus, yelling and throwing eggs on it. Aboard the bus? Haredi men who are signing up for army service. Inspired by the real-life young adults who choose to defy the strict conventions of their closed orthodox societies and join the army.

The series title literally means ‘Iron Dome’, as in Israel’s anti-missile defense system, but which can also translate to ‘Iron Yarmulke’. The show tells the story of those who don the uniform alongside their tzitzis and velvet yarmulkes — and about the way their families react when they return home. The soldiers have to both deal with a secular army that is still learning to adjust to the needs of religious recruits, while also coping with hostile reactions from their communities. The focus sits on three of the platoon members: Yaakov, an idealistic and devout hassid from Jerusalem, Amram, a wayward youth from Bnei Brak escaping something sinister, and Gur, a National-Religious soldier whose mindset becomes the subject of concern as the series unfolds.

Introduction by Carolyn Ben Natan, Special Advisor to the Consul General of Israel

Sammy Davis, Jr.: Ive Gotta Be Me is the first major film documentary to examine Davis vast talent and his journey for identity through the shifting tides of civil rights and racial progress during 20th-century America.

Sammy Davis, Jr. had the kind of career that was indisputably legendary, so vast and multi-faceted that it was dizzying in its scope and scale. And yet, his life was complex, complicated and contradictory. Davis strove to achieve the American Dream in a time of racial prejudice and shifting political territory. He was the veteran of increasingly outdated show business traditions trying to stay relevant; he frequently found himself bracketed by the bigotry of white America and the distaste of black America; he was the most public black figure to embrace Judaism, thereby yoking his identity to another persecuted minority.

Featuring new interviews with such luminaries as George Schlatter, Billy Crystal, Norman Lear, Jerry Lewis, Whoopi Goldberg and Kim Novak, with never-before-seen photographs from Davis vast personal collection and excerpts from his electric performances in television, film and concert, “Sammy Davis, Jr.: Ive Gotta Be Me” explores the life and art of a uniquely gifted entertainer whose trajectory blazed across the major flashpoints of American society from the Depression through the 1980s.

Sunday, April 29, 5:00 pm

Laemmle’s Town Center, Encino

TO BE A CHILD AGAIN – ISRAEL Documentary/Mexico/2018/58 minutes
Directed by Gabriel Volcovich & Moy VolcovichEnglish, Arabic, Hebrew with English subtitles

To Be A Child Again – Israel, is a snapshot of Israel, as seen through the lens of eleven selected children from different backgrounds and demographics. This candid view casts an intimate and personal light on Israel’s youth. We explore what they see, how they think, what they learn, and the astonishing impact their thoughts and lives have on their country and the world they are rapidly inheriting. It’s their opinions that matter, as they are the ones who are creating our future.

The story of two families in Israel on opposite sides of a conflicted border dealing with daily complexities, terrors and biases. When a YouTube video of an altercation between Ronit, a female Israeli soldier and Omar, a young Palestinian boy goes viral online, the two make an unlikely connection over social media, as they try to communicate the truth of what really happened that day.

Q&A with director Michael Horwitz and producer Todd Felderstein

THE DRIVER IS RED (see description on April 28 with The Last Suit)Animation/Short/2018/15 minutes
Directed & Animated by Randall Christopher

To some, Gloria Allred is a feminist prone to tawdry theatrics; to others she’s the most effective and fearless women’s rights attorney in America. In this intimate, warts-and-all documentary, one thing is certain: Allred’s 40-year devotion to asserting, protecting and expanding the rights of women is unwavering and her influence unassailable. And as the #MeToo movement gathers steam and powerful men fall, Allred declares: The fight has only just begun.

Q&A with filmmakers Roberta Grossman & Sophie Sartain

Producers in attendance Marta Kauffman & Robbie Rowe Tollin

Sponsored by Temple Israel of Hollywood

Sunday, April 29, 7:00 pm

Temple Israel of Hollywood

A CALL TO REMEMBER: The David Schaecter Story West Coast Premiere!

Documentary/USA/2017/30 minutes
Directed by Ken Winikur
Produced by Michael Berenbaum

Born in a small village in Czechoslovakia, David Schaecter was a young boy when the Nazi’s rose to power in Germany and is the only member of his family to survive the Holocaust. In this revealing documentary, David takes us on a journey — from his bucolic childhood where his family grew grapes for winemaking, to the struggle for survival he and his brother Jakob faced in Auschwitz, and finally, to David’s dramatic escape as the Allies invaded. As David pieced his life back together following the war, he was determined to remember those who were lost and became a founding member of the Holocaust Memorial Miami Beach.

Preceded by

116 CAMERASDocumentary/USA/2017/15 minutes
Directed by Davina Pardo

Shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short. This film follows Holocaust survivor Eva Schloss, Anne Franks stepsister, taking part in a groundbreaking project to preserve her memories. Facing a rapidly diminishing population of survivors, the USC Shoah Foundation embarks on an ambitious initiative to capture testimony as interactive holograms. Using innovative technology, users have virtual conversations with Holocaust survivors serving to educate generations to come.

A production of The Righteous Conversations Project, a collaboration of Holocaust Survivors and teens, produced during Harvard-Westlake Summer Film in 2017. Jewel-toned, hand-painted animation created by a team of students illuminates the personal testimony of a child survivor of the Holocaust.

Co-sponsored by Los Angeles City Councilmember, Paul Koretz and the Department of Cultural Affairs

In Partnership with the Sigi Ziering Institute at American Jewish University & the Righteous Conversations Project

Monday, April 30, 7:30 pm

American Jewish University

THE LAST SUPPER (Das letzte Mahl)World Premiere!

Drama/Germany/2017/83 minutes
Directed by Florian Frerichs

German with English subtitles

On the day Adolf Hitler comes to power, the German-Jewish family Glickstein comes together for a family dinner. Most of them however (like so many other Germans at that time) don´t take the Nazis seriously. When young Leah reveals her plans to emigrate from Berlin to Palestine, her family starts disputing. Her father Aaron can´t see any reason to leave Germany, the country of their ancestors and the country he risked his life for during the first world war. But when Michael, Leah´s younger brother, indicates that he actually is an ardent admirer of the national socialist movement, the family is on the brink of being torn apart…‘The last supper’ is a very personal and intimate chamber play – but also a warning letter to a world in which populists and demagogues are on the rise.

Eli (Ryan Ochoa), a teenager gets to know his grandfather Samuel (Hal Linden) for the first time when he makes him the subject of a senior year animated art project. With dreams of becoming a professional artist, Eli discovers that his grandpa was heroically saved from Nazi capture in Germany by a young woman when he was a boy. After hesitating, Samuel agrees to tell the story he hasn’t told in over 75 years. To his dismay, Eli is assigned to complete his project with an eccentric classmate Kasim, an electric guitar wielding school misfit.

Q&A with Hal Linden, Ken Davitian, Ryan Ochoa and cast

In partnership with CSUN Jewish Studies Department

Monday, April 30, 7:30 pm

Laemmle’s Town Center, Encino

BRIDE OF FINKLESTEIN

Short Comedy/USA/2015/21 minutes Directed by Michael Schlesinger

Starring Cantor Phil Baron of Valley Beth Shalom!

When their car runs out of gas on a dark and stormy night, Biffle and Shooster make their way to the “kestle” of mad scientist Dr. Finklestein, who’s about to create a new bride for himself. Despite being aided by a hunchbacked assistant and a gorilla, he still needs someone to help complete the experiment. And guess who that someone is.

This is a story of rediscovering the joys of community again in older age, and in the longing for ritual, however unorthodox it may appear. There are themes of love, of ritual and of community – all within the context of a heartwarming scene at Wendy’s.

FuturesPast captures the power struggle between filmmaker Jordan Melamed and his father, Leo Melamed, Holocaust survivor and kingpin of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Set against the last days of trading in the legendary Chicago pits, what begins as a document of the end of an era, becomes a deeply personal exploration by a son returning to “the kill or be killed” world he was raised in.

Commodity trader turned filmmaker Jordan Melamed returns to his former life as the Chicago trading pits are threatened with extinction. ‘Open Outcry,’ the 150-year-old tradition of traders shouting out their orders, is being silenced by computer trading. Dominating this world is Jordan’s father, Leo Melamed, the imperious Chairman Emeritus of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the man responsible for changing the way the world trades. As Jordan gives us a crash course in the secret code on the trading floor, upstairs in Leo’s office, a long-dormant battle between father and son erupts, echoing the shouting in the pits. Open Outcry is their only common language and Jordan is determined to close the gulf with his father before the pits are silenced forever. Nearly 10 years in the making, Futures Past deftly examines the importance of human contact, whether in families or “the pits.”

At a time when many are wondering how to make their voices heard, when civil and women’s rights are under attack, this empowering documentary is an inspiring look at how social change happens. Heather Booth, a renowned organizer and activist, began her remarkable career at the height of the Civil Rights movement. Through her life and work this inspiring film explores many of the most pivotal moments in progressive movements that altered our history over the last fifty years: from her involvement with Fannie Lou Hamer and the Freedom Summer Project to her founding of the JANE Underground in 1964, to her personal connections with leaders from Julian Bond and Senator Elizabeth Warren. HEATHER BOOTH: CHANGING THE WORLD blends interviews, from close friends, clients, political colleagues and current Midwest Academy students to explore Heather’s legacy in progressive politics and organizing.

Q&A Vivian Rothstein, community organizer and founder of the Chicago Women’s Liberation Union, one of the first feminist organizations of the 1970’s. She currently works with the L.A. Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE), an advocacy organization working to lift standards for workers in the region’s major low wage industries.

Sponsored by City of West Hollywood

Community Partner: International Documentary Association

Tuesday, May 1, 7:00 pm

West Hollywood City Council Chambers, West Hollywood

RISING SONS / OUT OF THE ASHES Documentary/USA/2017/58 minutes
Directed by Erin Heidenreich & Produced by Susan Saltz

Program with Jewish World Watch and special guest Malka Schulweis!

How do you end a culture of rampant rape? Congolese couple Camille and Esther Ntoto decided that first you must offer men a new vision of themselves and of women. Their program, Sons of Congo, is shown in this intimate, revelatory documentary through the voices of participants. In eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the Ntotos work, roaming militias often use brutal rape as a weapon of war, and it is believed one of every three women and girls in the region have been raped. Educating men, one small group at a time, is helping disrupt and end this cycle of violence.

Irrepressible comic legend Carl Reiner and other celebrity nonagenarians regard the secret of vitality and longevity, in IF YOU’RE NOT IN THE OBIT, EAT BREAKFAST. This Hollywood reunion-like collection of delightful, freewheeling conversations challenges notions about aging. Joining the camaraderie are Mel Brooks, Dick Van Dyke, Alan Bergman, Kirk Douglas, Norman Lear and Betty White, and non-showbiz cohorts who still greet each morning raring to go. Offering years of insights and anecdotes, these spry seniors are as sharp, vigorous and engaged as ever, demonstrating there is still plenty of life to live after 90. Bookended by swinging performances of “The Best is Yet to Come” by Tony Bennett, and Oscar-winning composer Alan Bergman’s “Just Getting Started,” this inspirational, genial gem shows how the twilight years can truly be the happiest and most rewarding.